Dombrowski’s Moves Have Lacked Creativity

Photo Credit: Boston Herald

We have all seen the uncharacteristically slow offseason set forth by Dave Dombrowski for the Red Sox.

Usually when Dave wants something, he gets it.

That was made clear when his first offseason here, he wanted a front line pitcher, got David Price. Oh, that rotation didn’t make it past the ALDS? Let’s go get another ace in Chris Sale the following offseason.

My only question through all of this is where is the creativity?

As far as what I can tell, the Red Sox are probably the only team that is willing to spend over the luxury tax threshold this year. The Yankees have made trades to get themselves under and they were able to swoop in and snag Giancarlo Stanton while offloading a little bit of salary in Starlin Castro at the same time to help balance the books a little better. The Dodgers completed a swap of contracts that are expiring this year in Adrian Gonzalez, Brandon McCarthy, Scott Kazmir, and Charlie Culberson for the Braves’ Matt Kemp.

This did a money shuffle and it allows the Dodgers to lessen their luxury tax blow for the upcoming season.

A lot of teams seem to be gearing up for next year, but why not the Red Sox?

It’s been said before: any baseball executive can come into the deep pockets of the Red Sox and pluck a $217 million dollar arm in David Price out of free agency. Any executive can take a top rated farm system and flip the prospects for proven players.

Where is the creativity in that? What other teams are doing, like the two swaps I just mentioned, is creative. They want to be in play for the ridiculous 2018 class of free agents, I get it. Why aren’t the Red Sox doing that?

As reported by Christopher Smith of MassLive.com quotes Dombrowski in response to Scott Boras: “I don’t know where we’d play two bats. I’m trying to figure that one out.”

It could be a power play with Scott Boras, who seems to hold all of the leverage for JD Martinez signing with the Red Sox for an expensive contract. That signing isn’t a creative move. Even still, Dombrowski is telling everyone that he can’t find a trade partner to get better. He can’t get creative and trade some of the contracts and wiggle his way under the luxury tax.

He can’t find room for more than one hitter?

Throwing money at the problem isn’t always the answer, as we saw with Dombrowski in Detroit. Large contracts for free agents create a struggle later on, and the need to be creative becomes important.

It does beg the question, does Dombrowski have the ability to be creative? Only time will tell.